MCV analysis claims that the British gaming market is already nearly as big as the Japanese market (which has twice the population and a greater per-capita GDP) and might overtake it soon. This was linked on RPS where a commenter remarked that Britons also spend about twice as much money on games as Americans, relative to population and GDP.
What’s up with the British gaming craze? Are the Japanese now just going to replay second-hand DS titles forever? Discuss!
But we are still treated as a third world country when it comes to gaming releases and price gouged on equipment and games when they are out.
Is that just because of the differenceof the relative values between their currencies and the fact that games are way overpriced generally in the UK? Or are they actually talking about volume of sales?
Higher local prices are a good point, actually. But the British pound is worth less now than, well, ever I think, so since all the comparisons are made in pounds, the relative retail volumes for Japan and America should go up rather than down.
Games are generally way overpriced in the whole of Europe, compared to US and Japan. Currency fluctuations are just a small part of it.
As if that’s going to change if you people keep on buying like crazy. :P
Yeah, the pound is not doing so well. I can’t think of a time it’s been closer off the top of my head.
As if that’s going to change if you people keep on buying like crazy. :P
Well I refuse to buy in the first week and I especially steer clear of the massive price gouged box sets like Rockband and world tour. I bought my set off ebay for about 1/5th the price. Sony for one loves to try and price gouge the UK which is why by principle I try not to buy anything from them (for example the same size and spec tv from Samsung is around 40% cheaper, and imo better).
Sony’s high pricing for consumer electronics is not specific to the UK, that’s just their market segment.
I’m a Brit, and I guess I contribute pretty healthily to this trend.
I’ve also noticed that both the console hardware and games do tend to be more expensive in the UK than in mainland Europe. The past two years I have bought Wii related goodies for my younger British relatives, and have found the prices to be so much cheaper where I live (Netherlands) that if I could have bought up dozens of, for instance, Wii’s and then sold them for 50 EUR profit a piece in the UK.
On the other hand, I do find that the UK high street game stores sell off their older PC games pretty cheap, and I mostly try to stay behind the curve so I can benefit from patched, modded games. I make exceptions when I want to reward a developer as much as when I have insufficient patience to wait for a particular game.